What does Navalny get from running for presidency?

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny speaks to a journalist during an interview in the Echo Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio station on April 8. Source: AP

After opposition leader Alexei Navalny announced his plans to run for Russia's presidency, political pundits resumed debates about the future of Russia's liberal movement.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny's plans to stand for Russia's presidency fueled debate about the future of Russia's liberal movement. Political pundits believe that this stance will be able to raise
the profile of liberal protest movement while others put his chances into question.

According
to a study conducted in late March by the Levada Center involving 1,601
people from 130 towns and cities in 45 regions, 37 percent of those
polled knew or had heard of Navalny. However, only one percent of the
respondents said they would vote for him in a presidential election,
while 38 percent were opposed to his candidacy.

“If a candidate possesses the necessary
resources – and it is vitally important to have the informational,
financial and administrative resources, as well as a good campaign team
and an electoral base – and genuinely plans on winning, then he needs to
have everything: charisma and a practical platform at the very least," political figure and former presidential
candidate Irina Khakhamada said commenting
on Navalny's chances.

"Navalny doesn’t have any resources whatsoever," she added. “That’s
why I reckon he’s got something else in mind. When I ran for president,
for example, I wasn’t interested in winning, per se. I wanted to raise
the profile of liberal protest.”

"If that’s what Navalny is after, then
he’s sure to get it. He succeeds where others have failed not only
because he is charismatic, but also because he gets tangible results
when he exposes some Duma official or other; he’s been able to get
deputies removed from office. These are concrete achievements in the
war against corruption. And he’s got charisma. That’s why his program
isn’t so important. For the purposes of consolidating his electorate,
it’s enough in this case to have a goal, charisma,” said Khakamada.

Khakamada
believes that while Russians may be unhappy with certain things in the
country and in the political establishment, few of these voters are
ready to demonstrate their dissatisfaction at the polls.

“As soon as the
president himself appears, the majority of people become very
conservative,” she said.

Members
of various political parties also rate Navalny’s chances of winning a
general election as very low.

“He can count on the right-wing liberal
niche, so about 5–7 percent of the vote, tops,” State Duma Deputy and
member of the Communist Party Sergei Obukhov said in an interview with
RIA Novosti.

Vladimir
Ovsyannikov, a Duma deputy from the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia
(LDPR) believes that Navalny’s rating currently hovers around 10–13
percent in those circles, “where there is a leaning towards pro-West,
liberal democracy.” Yet “miners, metalworkers, grain farmers and
agricultural workers – that is, the majority of the population – are
basically indifferent towards him,” Ovsyannikov said, according to RIA
Novosti.

Navalny for his part has denied all charges, countering that criminal
charges have been filed against him in order to prevent him from being
able to take part in the presidential elections. The Duma is currently
considering a bill that will forbid anyone convicted of a serious crime
from running for State Duma.

“Having
made his political plans public, Navalny is showing that he has no
intention of backing down,” said political analyst Yuri Krugunyuk. “He’s
planning to come out of this particular battle with some political
kudos.”